The H1B visa is a popular non-immigrant work visa that allows the US companies to employ the foreign workers in the speciality occupations, and the American tech companies have long depended on it to hire highly-skilled employees from countries like India and China.
A report has said that a recent policy change favouring advanced degree holders for visas in the U.S will have a drastic impact on the IT sector in the country as the number of H1-B visas approved gets reduced.
ICRA’s vice-president Gaurav Jain said, “Under the proposed amendments, USCIS would first select 65,000 visas from the cumulative pool of regular as well as the advanced degree holder applicants and 20,000 highly skilled H1-B visas would then be allotted among the remaining pool of unselected advance degree holder applicants.” He further said, “This will work against the Indian IT services sector (H-1B dependent employers) as their share of a masters degree or equivalent for H-1B visas approved was approx. 27 % compared to 55% for non-H-1B dependent employers.
On Friday Trump tweeted, “H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the US”
The US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) proposal to introduce the electronic registration for H-1B visa petitions for the filing season for the 2020 fiscal, which kicks off on 1st April 2019 along with a reverse selection process to include US master’s or advanced degree holders within the 65,000-cap will tighten movement for the Indian IT services sector. The Companies have already started assessing their needs and planning their submissions.